The present invention relates to a tag having an enclosed transceiver, such as a radio frequency identification xe2x80x9cRFIDxe2x80x9d tag. More specifically, the present invention relates to the field of anti-theft and information tags that are secured to a product and include a relative thin electronic device to assist in preventing theft and/or to contain product information that can be encoded into a signal for identifying the product when the signal is received by a suitable receiver. The thin electronic device may be laminated between outer layers of the tag and an outer surface of the tag may be printed with graphics and/or product information. As presently proposed, the invention is embodied in a high temperature tag with a RFID feature and provides a process for manufacturing such a tag. One application of an article provided by the present invention is a tag that is thermal transfer printed and is placed on a part requiring high temperature exposure.
Electronic (RFID) devices are commercially available and do not per se embody the invention. Early RFID systems were developed utilizing relatively large packages which limited the products on which they could be used. More recently, RFID devices have been made smaller so that they may be readily incorporated in tags or labels and their use can be more widespread. Such electronic devices are characterized in that they are thin, flat and generally flexible devices that are desirably laminated between outer sheets or layers of the tag so as to be relatively undetectable to the casual observer. Due to the more wide spread use of RFID tags, there has been an increasing interest in developing RFID tags that can endure moisture and/or heat exposure as may be encountered by the products to which they are applied.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a high temperature tag adapted to receive thermal transfer print to provide indicia on an outer surface thereof and adapted to be disposed on a part that is subject to high temperature exposure. The foregoing object is realized in accordance with the invention by forming an RFID tag as a lamination of high temperature material such as high temperature polyester and including a window for an RFID generator component.